by a former federal prosecutor. president obama today named mary jo white as his choice for s.e.c. chair. as u.s. attorney in the southern district of new york, white helped prosecute mob bosses and terrorists. darren gersh reports. >> reporter: no one on wall street could miss the significance of picking a former federal prosecutor to lead the securities and exchange commission. the president drove the point home saying mary jo white had taken down the head of the gambino crime family, the terorists who bombed the world trade center, and many others. >> i'd say that's a pretty good run. you don't want to mess with mary jo. >> reporter: the s.e.c. has struggled to rebuild it's reputation and stature following the madoff scandal and the financial crisis and white signaled she would be an active reformer. >> the s.e.c., long a vital and positive force for the markets has a lot of hard and important work ahead of it. i would welcome the opportunity to lead those efforts. >> reporter: the president says white isn't easily intimidated, a requirement for the job facing the s.e.c. >> we need to keep

julia coronado joins us. wall street kicked off the first trading day of president obama's second term with solid gains. helping push the blue chips higher were better than expected results from a cautious but hopeful dupont. the dow rose 62 points, the nasdaq added eight, and the s&p up 6.5 points. >> susie: today's gains extend a strong stretch of stock buying, one that began before the new year. despite concerns about corporate profits and debt negotiations in washington, investors are finally embracing equities again. suzanne pratt reports. >> reporter: perhaps it's optimism about a fresh start in washington, or maybe it's that the economy is finally building a stronger foundation. whatever the cause, the effect is that the dow, s&p 500 and nasdaq are all are up more than 4% in the first three weeks of this year. wall street veteran art cashin says with interest rates still so low, investors have a new taste for equities, particularly pension funds. >> they've got to up their risk profile, and therefore they're going to buy stocks. and some of that money is coming in not wildly, no

for comprehensive immigration reform. tomorrow, president obama heads to las vegas to give a policy speech on immigration. with washington focused on immigration, citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants could be the first major action in president obama's second term. darren gersh reports. >> reporter: the senators-- four republicans and four democrats-- argue we have already granted a kind of amnesty to the 11 million undocumented workers who live in the shadows of american society. >> we have been too content for too long to allow individuals to mow our lawns, serve our food, clean our homes, and even watch our children while not affording them any of the benefits that make our country so great. >> reporter: the "framework" the senators released today calls for tighter enforcement at the border and of existing immigration laws in return for granting immediate legal status for the 11 million undocumented workers now in the country. in the future, the number of new immigrants would be tied to the availability of jobs. >> we are going to enshrine in here the principle that americans

are wondering is this a signal from president obama that he's going to take a hard line on these budget and deficit talks by choosing a man like jack lew. what do you think? >> i think it is. i think one of the key aspects of the second-term agenda regarding the economy and fiscal policy is to achieve a stable debt situation by the time the administration is heading out of town. and interestingly, based on some spending cuts and tax increases that have been implemented so far, we're pretty close. and ja lewntimately knows what itakes toet om he to there. now, i think you, also, to, about other issues of the treasury's beat, international currency, financial markets, implementing the dodd-frank issue. as i mentioned, financial reform is still incomplete. so jack lew is going to have to oversee those as well. >> susie: let me get back to the budget issue. jack lew was also the architect of this sequester mechanism. a lot of people are worried if that kicks in, the automatic spending cuts, that, you know, that would really be a bad thing for the economy. some democrats are surprisingly say

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